Title :
Code canvas: zooming towards better development environments
Author :
DeLine, Robert ; Rowan, Kael
Author_Institution :
Microsoft Res., Redmond, WA, USA
Abstract :
The user interfaces of today\´s development environments have a "bento box" design that partitions information into separate areas. This design makes it difficult to stay oriented in the open documents and to synthesize information shown in different areas. Code Canvas takes a new approach by providing an infinite zoomable surface for software development. A canvas both houses editable forms of all of a project\´s documents and allows multiple layers of visualization over those documents. By uniting the content of a project and information about it onto a single surface, Code Canvas is designed to leverage spatial memory to keep developers oriented and to make it easy to synthesize information.
Keywords :
data visualisation; document handling; user interfaces; bento box design; code canvas; data visualization; infinite zoomable surface; information synthesis; open document; project document; software development; spatial memory; user interface; Engines; Layout; Navigation; Programming; Software; User interfaces; Visualization; integrated development environments; software visualization; zoomable user interfaces;
Conference_Titel :
Software Engineering, 2010 ACM/IEEE 32nd International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Cape Town
Print_ISBN :
978-1-60558-719-6
DOI :
10.1145/1810295.1810331